How does alcohol affect our society and our health?

How does Alcohol affect our society and our Health? An alcoholic beverage is a drink which has ethanol in it. There are 3 types of alcohol, beer, wine and spirits. The highest percentage of Alcohol is normally in spirits and the lowest is in beer. Alcohol is legally drunken in most countries however, “ 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption”. In England one is allowed to be served alcohol when they are 16 and over however one can only buy alcohol when they are 21 or over. In my opinion this is wrong because most people consider a drug, yet most people don’t see alcohol anywhere near as bad for you as taking drugs even thou “ Alcohol kills around 85, 000 people per year”. For the amount of deaths from drugs annually it is hard to tell because “ Cause of death is recorded on death certificates but doctors may not mention drugs, even where drugs might be involved”. After listening to the 85’000 deaths a year fact it is surprising that alcohol is warmly welcomed at any dinner, cultural event or even political events. Alcohol is widely used and seen in our society today. In this essay I will go through the health risks and how it plays a part in our modern world. Health Risks * The NHS recommend: * “ Men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units a day. * Women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units a day. ” Regularly means drinking these amounts every day or most days of the week. National Statistics say men drink an average of 18. 7 units a week, compared with 9. 0 units for women. On average this is correct however far too many people are drinking much over this statistic a week, and that is what is damaging or society as well. In Great Britain, just under a third of men (31%) and one in five women (20%) drink more than the advised weekly limits of 21 and 14 units a week respectively. Alcohol is a toxin which kills cells” When put in those words most people then take alcohol more seriously. Out of most drugs Alcohol is high in the middle section of dependence-physical harm graph. Short-term effects of alcohol consumption include intoxication and dehydration.  Long-term effects of alcohol include changes in the metabolism of the liver and brain and alcoholism (addiction to alcohol). Intoxication mostly causes slurred speech, loss of concentration and delayed reflexes. “ Alcohol stimulates insulin production, which speeds up glucose metabolism and can result in low blood sugar, causing irritability and (for diabetics) possible death. “ Alcohol also leads to heart disease, dementia (long term and short term), cancer, diabetes and stroke. Society In our society today especially Britain there is a huge amount of Binge drinking and over use of Alcohol. We are one of the most well known countries to abuse alcohol and it will definitely affect our future generation. Being brought up in a world where this is common is not good for anybody. Now children will be growing up to think it is ok to drink this amount of alcohol. Health Warning! Alcohol is widely advertised all around the world, from rich highly developed countries to poorer countries. This is one of the big issues on how Alcohol as a drink should be displayed. The question is, “ If alcohol is a killing drug, should it be advertised in the manner of making one think it tastes great and will make you stronger? “. There are many complaints about this is issue especially because it is encouraging the younger generation that drinking alcohol is cool and it tastes great. The adverts make people think alcohol is good when the truth is most aggressive people will often be alcoholics. Some solutions to these adverts brainwashing people is to have a health warning sign at the end of the advert like on cigarette boxes. This would maybe stick in the watchers minds. The other option would be to ban alcohol adverts all together or at least on some channels and times. Banning the adverts would end the propaganda about alcohol altogether however it would cause a large uprising from the brewing industry because sales would go immensely down. The other solution of banning the adverts is to ban them on channels that children tune into or young adults and teenagers tune into, this would stop the younger generation from being tempted. An example of this is “ In Malaysia, fast food advertising during children’s programmes was outlawed in 2007″ The media coverage on risks of alcohol should be increased and the laws of advertisement and exploitation of alcohol should be controlled by a separate board and not the government. However the Government in my opinion should rise taxes alcohol. On the other side of the argument there is the fact that for some people alcohol is essential in there life for many reasons. “ All socialites have a drug, in stressful places it Is good to relax” After looking over the information and facts on alcohol in modern day, I have come to a conclusion that the government or other organizations need to do something about how alcohol is a killer and is not good for you. However I do understand the reasons for people to drink it but I still think higher taxes or other problem solvers should be introduced. ——————————————– [ 1 ]. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage [ 2 ]. http://answers. yahoo. com/question/index? qid= 20101030224809AAKikKe [ 3 ]. http://www. drugscope. org. uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how-many-people-die-from-drugs [ 4 ]. http://www. nhs. uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/Effectsofalcohol. aspx [ 5 ]. http://www. christie. ab. ca/aadac/Facts/alcoholinsociety. htm [ 6 ]. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage#Effects_of_alcohol_on_health [ 7 ]. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Fast_food_advertising [ 8 ]. Programme on alcohol in class